Another Bad Poem
by Shauds02
Summary: Stephanie Brown is Robin and that's freaking amazing. The best thing that's ever happened to her. Now there's a killer telling her to give it up, like she could ever do that. Honestly the cute mechanic who "rescued" her from a mugger would have a better chance convincing her. Jason just wanted to mess with his replacement, this, whatever it is, was never part of the plan.
1. Bad Impressions

December first. Cold as balls, crisp white snow covering everything but the dirtiest parts of the city. The glow of the streetlights bounced off the snow, adding a pretty haze to everything that you could only see in winter – or when Doctor Freeze came out to play. It made things seem beautiful, so, so beautiful, especially if you were lucky enough to be seeing it from one of the wealthier, more well lit neighborhood.

Robin, partner to Batman, squire of justice, enemy of gravity, formerly Spoiler, the eggplant avenger, and… enemy of gravity, was stuck watching the city from beneath a drafty awning in the bowery.

Stakeout, Batman had said, watch for suspicious activity, and don't move unless ordered.

Here the snow was just as dirty as everything else, melted slush she's had plenty time to grow accustomed to. She sighed and lowered her binoculars, stretching out her legs before her. In all the time she'd been working as Robin, she'd come to learn that 'watch the door' was basically bat code for either, 'Catwoman is around, and I don't want to subject your innocent little mind to our flirting,' or 'I don't want you getting in the way.' Robin didn't see Catwoman hanging around.

Sometimes she questioned the point of there even being a Robin, when the littlest hint of danger had her benched, wasn't that when Batman would have needed his partner most? Being Robin was great, she'd go as far as to say it was the best thing that had ever happened to her, but she was begging to learn that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. That maybe, just maybe, Tim hadn't been underselling the position. Being around Batman a lot was one of those things that sounded great until you actually had to listen to the lecture on chewing gum while on patrol.

She winced at the memory of that one, accompanied by a ban of any chewing gum, in uniform or not for two weeks, and raised her binoculars again, though she couldn't make out Batman anywhere, and the warehouse he'd vanished within was silent as it had been since her stakeout has started. A guy that big should not have been able to disappear that easily, it was unnatural was what it was.

It had been a while, and not even a peep from the comms, she was starting to worry a little that he was inside and hurt and she'd been sitting here debating instead of going in and helping him. Biting on her bottom lip, she raised her fingers to switch on her comm and ask if he needed backup, her eyes still trained on the darkened windows. He hadn't given her any orders against that so it would be okay, right?

Movement flickered at the edges of her vision and she shifted her gaze to find it again, half thinking her tired, overactive mind had made it up when she couldn't pick it up again, but _'there',_ something glinting behind a smoke stack. She turned on her night specs and caught the shape of a man hunched in much the same position as her. Hesitation forgotten, she clicked on her comm.

"B, there's someone on the roof a street over." She said, squinting as though that would add more detail to the mass of grayish violet colors.

' _Armed?'_ He replies and Robin almost keels over in relief.

"Can't tell." She said after a few moment of studying the silhouette. "I think he's just… watching you." The glint she'd seen kinda looked like a pair of binoculars. "Should I go check him out?"

' _If he becomes a threat, retreat and wait for backup.'_ Is as close to a yes as she was going to get. Robin dropped from her perch, tied to hide in the shadows as well as Batman had. While she knew she wouldn't succeed, it should have been enough to get behind whoever was dumb enough to try bird watching Batman.

Instead of going right for him she slunk around back, got in position to either get a better assessment of whether or not this guy was dangerous, or scare the bejeezes out of him if he wasn't.

He was crouched low, peering over the edge of the smoke stack, his head turning around as though he was trying to find something he'd lost and a grin came alight on her face. She was able to sneak up on him; if he didn't see her leave then it was unlikely that he wasn't some dangerous mercenary or ninja out to get at Batman.

Scare time. Robin's smile grew as she crept up towards the guy, close enough now that she could clearly make out his cheap, rusty binoculars. Just as she was about to dramatically step out of the shadows and scold him for trying to spy on Batman, the guy reached out from under him and slammed a red helmet over his dark hair.

He leaped to his feet and ran, right past Steph, as though he hadn't even seen her.

"Hey!" She yelled, affronted and took off after him. The guy just sped up and Steph could see now that he was running right for the edge of the roof, and he wasn't slowing down, it looked like he was going to… "No wait!" She shot out her line to catch him, before he could take a leap off the skyscraper, god she wasn't even going to be that scary!

The man ducked and dropped down, Robin's stomach seeming to go along with him when his head disappeared and she wasn't fast enough to catch him. With a cry, she prepared to leap off after him, her line at the ready when she heard a crash that was from down below, but most definitely not below enough to have been the ground, followed by the thumping of heavy footfalls.

' _Robin, report.'_ Batman demanded his stoic tone just a tad tighter than usual.

"Asshole nearly made me think he jumped." Robin said, touching down on the musty wooden scaffolding that went up the side of the building, she caught sight of the stalker guy sprinting down it and lunged after it. "I'm going after him."

' _Don't do anything reckless.'_ He reminded her, and the wind rustling in her comm told her that he was on the move to, but whether towards her or for something he'd found she couldn't tell.

"Guy's small fry, I'm fine." She bit back a groan and fixed her eyes on her target. He certainly didn't run like he knew what he was doing, making his way down the scaffolding much slower than she was. It wouldn't take her a minute to catch him even if she didn't speed up.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and seemed to realize that too, shattering a window to duck into the building. Steph took a moment to note how weird his helmet looked, a smooth, solid red but for the stark white lenses, distantly familiar and not a motorcycle helmet, as she would have guessed. Steph shot out her line, swung out in an arch for his entry point, and went feet first into the same window he'd broken. Robin couldn't be responsible for too much property damage after all.

Robin blinked at dim interior, the unfinished concrete walls and floor, still scattered with construction materials. Somewhere within there was a scraping sound and she made for that, every step she took kicking up dust to swirl at her feet, it wasn't long before there was enough to tickle at her nose. She was going to have hay fever later that night for sure, she could tell.

"You know I'm gonna find you, right? Make it easy and come out on your own." She called, turning through a doorway and towards the ever-nearer sounds of him trying to make his escape. "Just gotta ask you a bunch of really boring, not at all painful questions about why the hell you were tryna spy on me and Batman."

Nearby metal scraped against the concrete, filling the air with a loud ringing that reminded Robin of a slew of horror movies she shouldn't have watched.

"Or I can just beat it outta you, I actually kinda prefer the beat it outta you option." Steph pounded a fist into her palm as she advanced.

A chuckle broke through the quiet, deep and dark; it echoed through the wide empty space and froze up a little piece of Steph's chest. "So creepy." She whispered, craning her neck to see all around her as she turned into another dark hallway."

"BOO." The his head dropped down in front of her and Robin reared back, before she had a chance to react, pain erupted behind her nose and she was tossed off her feet and sent skidding over the just littering the floor.

"Asshole." She cursed and leaped to her feet in a fighting stance, ignoring the tickle of blood pouring out of her nose.

He chuckled again, the heavily modulated, almost demonic sound aggravating her already foul mood. His hand struck out again, lighting fast and she ducked under it, throwing her weight forward and ramming her shoulder into his chest.

'Ouch, body armor, body armor.' Steph used the opening her strike had given her to break away from the masked man, putting more space between them. She spat out the blood that had gotten into her mouth and pulled out a pair of batarangs, wait Robins one's were called birdarangs, right? "I _'was'_ hoping we'd go the route that gets you a beating." She kept her tone light, almost conversational. "Think we can finish this before the big man comes along?"

"I think we'll manage." He held up a hand, near his head, displaying a small device that… her hand flew to her ear, feeling for her comm as her eyes widened and her stomach clenched painfully. He squeezed his hand into a fist, the comm cracking in his palm, and then dropped the useless bits to the ground.

His fist came at her again and she turned with the blow so that it just clipped her shoulder, even so, and with the added protection of her armor, it was as if a truck had hit her, throwing her back and knocking the breath right from her lungs. She was up and charging as soon as her feet hit the ground, coming in low, she slashed at him with the batarangs in her fists. There was no skin for them to cut, but having a blade coming at you was a lot more likely to trip you up that a knife, she knew. Even a millisecond of hesitation on her opponent's part could be the difference between winning and losing.

"So this is the new Robin, huh?" He dodged her blows almost effortlessly and she had a sneaking suspicion that if she had x-ray vision she'd see a smirk under that helmet. No matter at what angles she moved at, or how many times she changed her speed, he kept up the pace with her. Like he'd done this all before, like he saw it coming. It was like sparring with batgirl again and she _'hated'_ it.

"I'm not new anymore!" She went for a kick, and when he dodged it, spun around for another, and another. On the third swing, her foot finally made contact with his chest.

The strike left her foot feeling numb, but he stumbled back, almost knocked off balance. Steph went in to take away the almost, swinging her fist in for a throat punch, but he caught her arm at the wrist and tugged her sharply towards him, using her momentum to force her past him. "Sure you're not." His foot slammed into her back and she went sprawling back to the ground.

Robin turned her fall into a handspring and got as far away from him as she could when he was blocking the only exit.

"Need a little time to catch your breath?" He asked, leaping at her again.

She ducked a sliced at him with out with a birdarangs to get some more distance, he moved to broach the space, but she circled away moving as he did to keep him away. "You're maybe a little tougher than I thought you'd be." Maybe too tough, and Robin protocol for that boiled down to 'stall until backup arrived'. There was a reason Robin had to be chatty. Oracle would be able to tell that something had happened when the comm stopped transmitting; all Robin had to do was stall. She'd be fine.

"What do you want?" She asked.

He hummed, but didn't answer, his head cocking to the side as he kept up his game of slowly advancing on her. Contrary to how it had seemed before, it was now clear that he very much knew what he was doing.

"Or is this a kidnap the Robin thing, cause I gotta tell you, not original." A glance behind her showed that she was still too far from the door to make a run for it, and even if she weren't she didn't like the idea of turning her back on this guy.

"I know, trust me." The way his modulator was distorting his voice, she doubted even his mother would trust him. "I know." He punctuated the last sentence by lunging at her again. She tried to tuck and roll out of reach, but his hands closed around her hair and yanked her back. "Cool hair, not very practical." He tugged harshly enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she thought for a second he was going to back her head into the nearby wall, but instead he just used his grip to toss her aside, further from the door.

Robin ran her hands along her scalp and growled at him, her teeth clenching. "Thanks for the compliment, but psychos aren't my type." She spat, worry now curling around in her ribs.

"Then take off the costume." The way he said it canceled out any thoughts that he was _'that'_ kind of creep. "Psycho's are the only things you're gonna attract in that." His posture was tight, fists clenched at his side sides, one leg slightly in front of the other, like a snake coiled and ready to strike, but he didn't.

Slowly Robin's hands felt from her head, she hadn't expected this turn of events, but that didn't make her any less angry. "That'd mean a lot more coming from someone other than the man that lured a girl into an abandoned building to slap her around." She moved her hand slowly for the smoke pellets at her utility belt.

"And if I'd wanted to do more than slap you around? Say take one of those fancy knives and cut off an arm, or strap you to a bomb, I could have done it by now. What happens then?" He sounds angry; she can make out that much through the distortion in his voice, but maybe something else too.

"I'm not scared of you." She said, refusing to let his threats sink in past the surface layer of her skin. "Batman's gonna be here any minute now."

He let out a bark of laughter, startling her with its suddenness, and her she gave up the pretense of going slow to grab for her belt. She had the smoke pellet in her hand, but he reached her before she could activate it.

His hands tightly pinned both of her wrists against the wall besides her head, the blank, soulless lenses of his helmet hovering in front of her, so close her breath clouded the glossy surface of his helmet with condensation. "If I'd wanted to put a bullet between your eyes I could have done it fifty times over by now, and all it woulda gotten outta _'Batman'"_ he put a twist on the word and she noticed that his accent had slipped into something very familiar, "is a tombstone and a new kid to fill the tights." He squeezed her wrists so tightly her hands went numb.

"Then why haven't you?" Her fists loosened, lacking the blood flow for keep tight. "Talking's real easy, but I don't see you doin' anything else."

He was quiet for a few moments, holding her gaze. "Ha." His thumb forced her hand open and the smoke pellet dropped to his. "I like you Blondie, but look out." He released her hands and flicked rolled the pellet between his thumb and forefinger. "One day your gonna run into someone like me, and they're gonna take the shot." He crushed the pellet as she spoke, and dropped it to the ground with a detachment that sent a chill up her spine.

The room filled with smoke choking out the already musty air and Robin's hands were almost too numb to get to her rebreather in time. Batman arrived soon after, but the attacker was already long gone.


	2. Open Doors

Port Adams, not the only commercial dock in Gotham, but it was certainly the busiest. A constant stream of barges coming and going at all hours. Some dropping off their cargoes or picking up the produce of the cities many manufacturing plants. Say what you wanted about the city, more wealth passed through its ports than just about any other city in the country.

It was one of the reasons all but the worst idiots to grace the planet hadn't abandoned the hellhole. That didn't mean there was any shortage of idiots though.

A gunshot rang out from deep within the maze of storage containers waiting by the corner side, cries of alarm and the scuffling of men frantically trying to escape.

Wealth didn't just attract tourism and those with deep pockets. A dock as big as Port Adams was near impossible to keep clean, even if the overseers hadn't been dirty to the bone. Even with the Batman watching over the city, there were always going to be criminals sliming their way into any nooks and crannies they could find.

"That's one, two, three…"The demonic voice counted out, tapping his glock against the chipped red paint of the shipping crate, he whistled, shaking his head. He wasn't angry enough to not be impressed by the balls it had taken them to try pulling this one over him. "Unbe-fucking-leavable. First I gotta deal with her, now this too."

One of the men crouched at his feet, a tool with long scraggly grey hair wearing stained blue overalls tried to scramble back now that their tormentor's back was turned, he hadn't even made it over the bloodied corpse of his fellow worker before another shot ran out. The man rolled over, screaming things he couldn't hear anymore, clutching at where his left ear used to be, as blood ran down his sleeve. "Manners one-oh-one asshat. Ya don't run away in the middle of a conversation."

"Uh, uh, uh." The Hood appeared right before his face, read and gleaming even in the dim lighting, the pure white lenses burning into his soul. "Please, please, please." The man whispered, tucking his head between his legs and trying to curl up small as could be, high out of his mind, he probably hoped it would make him invisible.

"Pathetic." Hood laughed, shaking his head yet again. He could have almost felt sorry for the poor bastards, that was, if they hadn't been trying to flood the Lower Eastside with armor piercing assault rifles and M67 fragmentation grenades. They'd thought they were real fucking tough when he'd happened upon them.

He turned his back on them again and rolled his shoulders, giving them full view of the bullet holes they'd left in his jacket. Moron's hadn't even thought to reach for those armor-piercing rounds when he'd shown up. How did crime even survive in this city?

"We done now?" He gave the three living men kneeling behind him one last warning glance over his shoulder. His only answer was more whimpering, but he took that as an affirmative and ducked back into the container.

It took little over five seconds for his hand to grab hold of the one moron who _'had'_ been smart enough to go for the good bullets. Too bad for him his hands were…. less than good enough for those bullets. He dragged the man, kicking and screaming up a storm from out of the darkness he'd sought refuge in.

The screams were splittingly loud and more annoying than even the mangled hands trying to disentangle his from the cloth at the scruff of the guy's neck. Worse than that, he didn't want an even higher risk of someone coming to investigate; it was bad enough he'd had to push his pans forward once already that night.

"Shut up!" He slammed the guy into a crate, the sound echoing hollowly throughout the area. It didn't shut Screamy up, so Hood slammed a gun under the bastards jaw and flicked off the safety. "I've been having a fucking night; you really wanna piss me off more asshole?"

A stream of no's, most of them unintelligible were his reply, a stream of _'loud'_ no's. Hood sighed and tossed the guy aside, catching Screamy's ribs with the steel plated toes of his boot. There was a crack, but Screamy had finally decided that making a noise was doing way more harm than good. He curled in on himself and kept his screams to himself.

"Not so fucking hard now was it?" He dragged Screamy over to his friends, there was some scrabbling of his legs, but that was likely just a reflex thing, not the guy trying to escape. "Robin didn't scream as much as you and she's a kid, didn't make a sound when I got her face with these boots. Grow the fuck up." He tossed the man derisively amongst the others. "Hand it to the bat, he knows how to pick em, girl hits harder than all of you bastards combined." He cocked his gun again, she'd been fiesty, done a lot better than he'd thought she would, he'd almost have liked her if the situation had been different. "You had as much balls between you as that kid and I wouldn't be here."

Whether that was because they'd be dead or they wouldn't have caved to selling military grade weapons to gangsters he wasn't quite as keen on finding out.

"Now, where were we?" He tapped his gun against where his lips would be, the hollow _tap, tap, tap_ against his helmet serving to unnerve them even more. "Oh yeah, the kiddy gangs." He tucked the gun away and got out his keris to replace it. "You were just about to…"

"Hypocrite."

Hood spun around to find the source, and was surprised to see the speaker was the guy who'd just gotten part of his ear shot off.

"I'm sorry?"

Bloody-Ear glared up at him, hand still clamped over the bleeding stump on the side of his head. "Ya wanna talk all mighty bout selling guns ta brats, and ya kick around a little girl for shits."

Hood blinked at the man, he kind of wished the expression were visible, if not for the fact that there might have still been a sniper around he might have forsaken the protection of his helmet to meet the man's defiant eyes. "Come again?"

"Yer not the one with his fucking ear blown off." The man spat, much to the shock of the rest of them. "Think yer fucking special, psychopath.

He didn't like that word. Hood hummed, moving towards the man slowly, stomping his heavy boots down to make as much noise as he could. A grin crept on his face, spreading slowly with each step he took and each inch the men tried to pull back from them. Bloody-Ear wasn't immune, his expression slowly morphing to reflect those off the others.

"Ya wanna know the difference, dipstick?" He grabbed the man's shirt and pulled him up off the ground, holding him at eye level. "Kids you pieces of shit sell these to, they end up dead, kids those kids use this on, they end up dead, kids who depend on those other kids… ya seeing a pattern here Einstein?" He asked, giving the man's neck a squeeze. "Robins, take it from me, they're no fun dead. Right?"

He looked away from the guy dangling in his arms for at those remaining of his arms running operation, nodding wide eyed at him.

"There, see, knew you could be taught. And lucky me, cause I had to leave some of you dispshits alive tonight." Hood sighed and dropped Bloody-Ear to the ground; his arm was beginning to go numb from the weight. "I gotta get a rise outta Batman somehow, right?" He cocked his gun, completely unnecessary, but he liked the way it made them flinch. "So, who's it gonna be?" He very obviously looked between the four of them.

Honestly, he would have preferred none of them be alive, but he needed rats if his plans were going to go smoothly in Gotham, good, scared rats. And they were never as scared as right after they thought they'd seen how far he was willing to go. It was guy's like them that made it hell to be a kid on these streets, they didn't deserve to go home to their hovels and keep doing what they were doing.

'Even the worst of men have their uses boy'

With any luck they'd be too chicken shit to try anything until he _'could'_ brain them against the nearest solid object, but he wasn't going to do that for any less than the number of people he really had to.

"Him, I need alive…" he gestured at Bloody-Ear with his gun. "That guys obviously a heavy hitter." The gun turned to the biggest of the lot; he looked a little less accustomed to the job, likely only brought along to move the heavy things. "You two, you're gonna have to woo me, what you got to offer a guy?" He splayed the fingers of one hand, pressing them against his chest.

They gaped at him, wide eyes and shaking so hard he wasn't even sure if their voiced were capable of clawing out of their throats. "Come, on, nothing, really?" He rolled his eyes and tucked the knife away. "Okay, howsabout this. I'll ask a question, best answer wins, that good for you?"

Well that got him a couple nods at the very least.

"Okay then." He hummed and began pacing, deliberately stomping down his heavy boots to make them lean a little further back from him, only glancing at them a couple times to make sure they weren't trying anything. He waited until he'd made a full circuit around them before turning sharply on his hell and bending down so he was at almost eye level of them. "Eary over there thinks I'm a hypocrite, he tilted his head at the boss, what about you two, waddaya think of the girl Robin?"

"Lit… Little bitch." One spat out almost immediately. "Ya could, should catch her again, teach her a lesson real good, right, bet she, she deserved it , shoulda hit her harder 'n ya did, got a…"

The gun went off even before Red Hood consciously thought of it, the bang seeming even louder against the sudden rushing in his ears as blood splattered along the ground, covering the guy who hadn't spoken in the blood of his workmate.

"Oh shit, oh shit…" The guy scrambled back, tried to but the corpse had wound up splayed across his legs, trapping him in place. His eyes fixed on the killer in front of him, tears now dribbling from his eyes. "She's great, she's the best." He was waving his hands up in front on him now. "The, the… dunno why there was ever another…"

"Shut up." Hood said in a tone that would have been close to a sigh without the voice modulation of his helmet, a dry, disgusting taste filling his mouth and throat. "You've got the job." The guy started rambling on about something, but Hood didn't listen as he turned to leave before rapid fire beating in his chest got out of control. "I'll text you the address where I want the guns delivered, don't be late."

O

O

O

"How was I supposed to know, it'd be a trick, the guy ran like he was gonna fall of that ramp any second." Her shouting agitated the bats roosting above their heads.

"That is why you're supposed to pay attention, you were trained better." Bruce studied the girl through the filtered perspective the cowl provided him, the two black eyes brought on by her nearly broken nose, butterfly bandages holding together the gash on her brow, scrapes all along her cheeks. That was to say nothing of the bruises blossoming all along the rest of her body, hidden now by the loose post-patrol workout clothes she kept at the cave. She shouldn't have gotten hurt that badly, if he'd put more hours into her training.

"I was paying attention, that's how I thought he looked like he was gonna fall over, I can't help he was a good actor." She crossed her arms over her chest. "He coulda fallen off the side of that building and died!"

"He could have killed you!" It had been too familiar, finding her there, bloody and propped up against the wall after she'd been lured away from what he'd meant to be a safe distance from danger.

"Yeah that's what he said too." She mumbled, turning her head away from him, the rage twisting her features so familiar it made his chest burn, and Bruce knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was nothing he could say that would get through to her. "It wasn't my fault."

"You're banned from regular patrols until I've gotten him off the streets." He turned from her so he wouldn't have to look at it, knowing she'd see any preventative measure he put in place to keep it from happening again as a punishment no matter how he phrased it.

"What?" She leaped from the cot, the skid he heard giving away that she's stumbled. "I was going on solo patrols before we even met. I can hand…"

"Robin!" He snapped, cutting her off as he spun back to her. "When I agreed to let you wear that uniform, you agreed to nothing less than total obedience, you are not skilled enough to handle this man on your own and you will _'not'_ wear the it without direct supervision while you are being targeted or it will be taken from you, have I made myself clear!" It didn't matter that the man had insinuated he wouldn't be coming after her again, that he _'had'_ targeted her at all, had planned things in such a way to get her alone was enough.

"Fine." She spat the word out through her heavy scowl, her fists shaking where she'd balled them up at her sides in an effort to keep herself calm, from lashing out like it she would have if she'd been give even the smallest amount of leeway.

"Good, now get home, your mother's probably waiting for you." He left her at the med bay to finish dressing while he went to the batcomputer to begin working on some old case files to clear his head, not turning from the screen until he heard her stomp past on her way to the old bike she wouldn't let them replace.

"Should I bother coming in tomorrow night?" She called as she started up the engine.

"There are some training exercises I want you to go through." He replied, keeping his eyes on his work.

She didn't say anything, tearing out of the cave a moment later. Bruce sighed and pulled down his cowl to pinch the bridge of his nose in an attempt at staving off what he'd convinced himself was a coming headache.

O

O

O

"Without supervision." Steph scoffed, stomping down on the parking breaks too hard when she put the bike into park. "Come in tomorrow for more training, cause you're still not good enough." She pushed back the urge to ram her fist against the handlebars and up off the bike.

No going out without supervision was just Batman speak for, 'You're going to stay in the cave practicing flips until I say so.' Because Batman was always going to have some reason why he couldn't take her with him, and Batgirl had a tendency to knock her out when things got interesting.

Her face still hurt and when her mom saw it, she was going to ask questions, as if Crystal Brown hadn't seen Steph walk by in worse shape with no comment. She'd only get a couple hours of sleep because she'd need to get up early to plaster her face with concealer to hide the bruising so no one else would ask questions. The girl leaned back on her bike with a sigh and ran a hand through her hair, now free of any hair gel. "Cool hair." She muttered to herself and stepped away from the bike, her hands shoved deeply into her pockets.

It was just the worst day, and it wasn't even over yet. There were still three blocks between her and home, and the darker than usual clouds were promising snowfall before she got there. She'd reluctantly stepped into the frigid air outside – not that the unheated little storage room was any better – and was just stringing the lock through the door when she heard the shuffling footfalls coming up behind her. Her head made a hollow thump when it knocked against the heavy metal in front of her.

"Hey, watchya got there?" The voice came from behind her.

Steph's feet dragged loudly against the concrete when she turned, her lips pursed tightly to keep her from saying something in her irritation that she shouldn't have.

There were only three of them, the tall woman who'd spoken to positioned ahead of the other two, she leaned forward, one hand slamming onto the door besides Steph's head, trying to box her in.

"Come on, we just wanna see, maybe take it for a ride, you won't mind, right?" The woman's grin was predatory, one of her flunkies cracking his knuckles behind her.

"Sorry, but I _'just'_ locked it up." Steph ducked under the arm and tried to walk away, not bothering to make either her voice or expression even a little genuine.

Predictable that got her an arm on her shoulder, pulling her back, and the sound of a switchblade somewhere behind her.

Fine, Steph's hands balled into fists, her knuckles popping with the motion, a grin twisting her features as adrenaline trickled into her blood. No going out as Robin didn't mean Stephanie Brown couldn't beat the ever-loving crap out of these assholes. She spun to throw her first punch.

"Hey!" The voice was accompanied by a shape speeding by Steph, tackling the guy with the knife clear to the other end of the alley. Steph – and later she'd blame this on her minor concussion – was too shocked to move at first.

The new guy spun on his heel to face the new guy, his fists coming up to frame his bright blue eyes in a sloppy boxing stance, a cocky smirk in place. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the tow muggers still standing threw themselves at him, he got in a few hits, but one had a piece of rusted rebar and he was outnumbered really soon. By the time Steph reached the fight, they'd already thrown him against the side of a hardware store and pressed a knife dangerously close to his neck.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on." Steph skidded to a stop before them, holding up her hands. She didn't want to lose her bike, but she wasn't going to get some guy stabbed over it. Unfortunately – or fortunately if Steph had been almost anybody else – the thugs weren't interested in her anymore.

"You wanna know what happens to dumb kids who try to play hero here?" The woman demanded, spittle flying from her mouth, mixed with the blood trailing down her nose.

"Wanna know what happens to dumbasses caught in the middle of a murder scene?" He choked out, trying to lean away from the knife despite the wall at his back.

"And who's gonna catch us?" The woman returned, leaning in real close.

He squirmed a little in the hold the men had on him to get one of his arms low enough to reach into his pants pocket and retrieve a cellphone. "Ready called the cops." He grinned at them with bloody teeth and cocked his head towards where there were in fact sirens audible not too far off.

The woman snarled and her fist struck out, hitting the guy with an uppercut that would have rattled his brain, she grabbed the phone from his hand and all three of them sped off.

Before chase after them, but paused when the guy now lying in the snow groaned softly. The cop car they'd heard sped right past the scene as though there was nothing there, and now, she supposed, that her stress relief had run off there really wasn't.

Steph glared down at him, a low growl threatening to slip out of her throat, she was about to tell him that she could have handled it herself and he had no business almost being stabbed for a completely pointless reason, thank you very much, but the almost proud expression on his face gave her pause.

"Didn't really call the cops." The guy muttered as he sat himself up and looked in the direction the muggers had disappeared down. He caught her watching him and tried to grin, but winced and brought up a hand up to prod at his already swelling cheek. "Ow, fuck."

She had enough experience trying to help people only for them to share the same sentiments she almost had. Stress and adrenaline had that effect on people. It happened less to Robin than it had to Spoiler, but having people talk down to you when you were trying to help still wasn't the best feeling in the world. And he'd lost his phone because of it.

"You okay?" She knelt down and offered him her hand, trying for a friendly smile. Snow was falling from the sky now, and Steph just knew she'd be soaked by the time she got home and wasn't that just fucking perfect.

"Yeah." He accepted it and let her pull him to his feet then, dusted some snowflakes from his messy dark hair, eyes turning skyward, and they were really pretty eyes, almost green now that Steph got a good look at them, then they turned to her. "Looks like I was a little late, huh?"

"What?" She frowned at him and he waved a finger at her face, her very sore, very bruise covered face. She probably looked someone had pelted her in the face with beets. Steph turned away sharply and brought up her hood to hide as much of it as she could. "No this was…" She jammed her hands into her pockets to start walking away. "Something else."

"Hey hold up." She heard his steps crunching against the snow as he jogged after her once a few seconds had passed, for the second time that night – early morning? – a hand dropped against her shoulder, this one was less hostile, but Steph was also in a way worse mood.

"What?" She asked, careful to keep from snapping at him.

"You uh…" His eyes were wide when he blinked down at her and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "You forgot to lock your bike away."

Steph looked passed him, the chains had fallen to the ground outside the storage room and when she checked, she found the lock still in her pocket.

"Crap." Steph rolled her eyes heaven ward and jogged back, she almost expected to find that someone was in the process of stealing the thing already when she yanked the door open. She barely had the time to release the breath she'd been holding when a low whistle from behind had her spinning around.

"How much horsepower you got on that thing?"The guy was right behind her, looking over her shoulder at the parked bike.

Steph let out a shout and shoved him back. "What the…" How had he even snuck up on her like that? "Oh, come on, if you try and rob me too I swear to God…" She was too tired for this crap; she was already going to have to choose between sleeping tonight and getting to school on time the next day.

"Nah I wouldn't." He waved his hands in front of him with a disarming smile. "I was just, uh…" One hand went to rub the back of his neck and he diverted his eyes. "I just thought it looked pretty cool, ya don't see that kinda machine round here a lot." He splayed his fingers helplessly.

Steph blinked owlishly at the guy, with his earnest expression, his hands were behind his back now and he almost looked like he was going to start bouncing on his feet, despite the fact that he was tall and dressed like he'd walked out of a biker movie, he looked so harmless. Even in her foulest mood, Steph wouldn't have been able to deny that it was cute.

"I really have to get home." Steph said, twisting the chain in her hands, trying to divers her eyes from his as she listened to the links clinking together.

"Oh." There was a crestfallen look on his face for barely a second before he wiped it off and stood. "You want me to walk you, y'know, in case they come back or something happens?"

Steph thought it was more likely that something would happen to him than her.

"Hey I'm tall, I can be scary." He curled his fingers besides his face as though they were claws, at her unimpressed frown he slipped out of his jacket, leaving him with just a green hoody for warmth, and held the leather above both their heads, shielding them from the snowfall. "Got an umbrella." He smiled down at her.

"Okay fine." Steph fought down her smile and dragged the chain through the handles on the door and clicked the lock in place. "So you just walk around looking for fights?" She asked as he fell into step with her.

He snorted and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "Not like ya have to look in this city." His eyes went to the sky, and he frowned at the snowfall, then winked down at her. "Worth it though."

"Yeah sure." Steph rolled her eyes and pulled he draw strings of her hoody closed around her face to hide the heat spreading across her cheeks.

He said his name was Peter, he was a mechanic who worked around Otisburg, she didn't find out much more about him seeing as how he spent most of the asking about her bike, but he left her a card when he dropped her off and told her to call him any time she needed a tune up.

She still got the feeling he was more interested in her bike than her, but at least he was nice. Just figured she had to meet him when she looked like hell.

O

O

O

Jason's smile turned to a smirk as soon as he turned away from her and began walking down the street. He hadn't planned it, running into her that way, hadn't really factored her into his plans at all anymore other than keeping her out of them, but now…

He pulled a tracker out of his pockets and turned towards the signal being emitted by the phone those morons had been unlucky enough to try stealing from him.

Now he knew that Bruce didn't keep as close an eye on her as he should have, there was no tracer on her bike, and if she walked around her neighborhood that bruised up, there was no one watching her close enough to question it. There was a path to Bruce there, and while he wasn't sure what it was he was going to do with it, now that he knew it was open, so were a whole slew of new possibilities.

Messing with her a little could be interesting, or it could prove pointless, he'd just have to wait and see what happened. After all, an open mind _'was'_ the most important precondition for creating new ideas.


	3. Phone Calls

Stephanie took in a deep breath, hands tightening on the steel hoops she dangled from; sweat falling from her brow to leave trails down her cheeks and chin. With an exhale, she pulled herself up again to begin another five minutes of endurance training.

Two weeks. Batman had kept her out of the field for _'two weeks'._ Two weeks of flipping on a trapeze and pounding her firsts into purpled messes against training dummies, of having to both hold her weight and keep herself perfectly balanced on hoops attached to wires dangling from the ceiling.

Steph would grudgingly, and really, she meant grudgingly, admit to the tasks having becoming a lot easier over the course of her inbenchment in the cave. She was also _'exhausted',_ her backed ached, her shoulders and she was about ready to collapse on her ass.

She bet Tim'd never been made to do this much, at least, if he had he'd never complained about it. Steph lowered slowly on the hoops and let herself drop to the ground, almost stumbling when her bare feet met with cold concrete. As she grabbed the towel she'd left on the nearest bench, she wondered what he was doing now. Playing board games with his dad, watching star trek – she could have done with a movie night right again. Maybe if she called him… Maybe he was on a date with that other girl. And Steph wasn't really supposed to either.

The protein shake Agent A left her tasted like chocolate and lemon… with after hints of saw dust, and she'd already finished off all the cookies she'd been using to wash it down. Sipping the drink, her eyes went to the uneven ceiling, then over to the computer. Then to Batman's chair. Steph hummed, the straw still in her mouth. Batman wasn't here; the only sounds in the cave where the humming of the computer and the few bats that hadn't flown off yet.

There was no one to stop her. Nothing but that empty Robin suit standing off to the side. Steph felt like it was watching her. It took her one long ass second to decide she didn't give a damn. If Batman didn't want her sitting in his chair, he should have left more than an empty suit to protect it from her. Childish, she knew, but still she almost didn't suppress a squeal of delight when she tacked her way into the chair.

Her weight pushed the chair back, carrying it along with it as it wheeled across the floor, facing the suit as she did so and flipping it off. "You'd better not squeal." She warned the case sternly, and then kicked off on the ground, making the chair take her back to it. Why wasn't it up with the others on the balcony though, she squinted at the suit, then at the rows of others further away. Maybe it was just a general tribute to Robins? Or the very first Robin suit or something.

"What about you, Mister Good Soldier." Steph drawled, relaxing into soft, soft cushiony chair as she looked down at the plaque. "Did he make you workout in this cave for weeks while he had all the fun?"

Predictably the suit didn't answer, Steph scowled at it and slid over to the computer instead.

Alerts scrolled across one of the most powerful computers in the world. Alarms tripping, transcribed police communications, 911 calls, the works. Steph watched them move, so much to do, it wasn't like Batman didn't need the help, when had Tim ever been benched for two whole weeks, more than two weeks the way things were going – she didn't think it was possible to bench the awesomeness that was Batgirl. Batgirl who was off investigating something with Batman instead of bad influence Stephanie. If Steph hadn't known about her friend's bastard of a father, she would have thought she was Batman's daughter, really.

One of the alerts was yellow instead of the usual blue, an address in the Coventry, abandoned warehouse central. Important, but not super dangerous. Still, Robin was grounded, because a psycho had threatened to ' _not_ ' shoot her. Just to be careful she wouldn't go out as Spoiler either.

Just sneak in, get a look and get out. That way if something happened there'd be someone there to call it in if something big happened.

Steph set the chair carefully back in its position before she dressed quickly and slunk over to her bike. It was probably only a little thing anyway, people nabbed little things from warehouses all the time.

O

O

O

It wasn't a little thing.

Steph crouched, hidden behind a pile of moldy crates almost up to the roof, trying to gather as much information as she could when her only viewing point was a sliver or space between two of them. From the brief look of the average sized warehouse she'd gotten before she'd ducked into hiding, most of these crates were either empty or filled with incredibly old, terrible smelling pacing peanuts. Those weren't what bothered her.

They'd already completed the deal by the time she got in there, the sellers having made off with their payment and the buyers were busy loading up the large idling truck. Steph watched them but from her position, she couldn't hear much more than unintelligible murmurs from the two fancy suited man and woman talking besides the truck. All she could hear was the whining of the guys doing the loading.

"'M tellin' ya, he finds us here and were dead." That voice was loud, booming even, in the mostly enclosed space.

"This has nothing to do with kids, he's got nothing to go on," said another, higher pitched voice.

"Yeah know what, you try explaining that to him logically 'f he shows up." The guy who said that didn't look big enough to be much help in the lifting department.

Going off their descriptions the guys who'd gotten her into so much trouble with Batman was going by the Red Hood now, and she wasn't the only one he'd pissed off so far. Their eyes were focused more on the ceiling that the ground, so it wasn't too hard for Steph to creep by, using the crates as additional cover as she hugged the shadows. Of course all the practice doing it in Robin's bright colors was a huge plus too, in her non-descript street clothes she could have probably walked right out and they wouldn't have see her.

She checked for witnesses then carefully cracked open one of the sterile white boxes to get a look at the contents. Medical supplies? Steph frowned, lifted a sealed package from the rows of its carefully packaged brethren, and ducked behind the larger crates again to inspect it.

Painkillers, strong ones, and the kind that self respecting doctors only rarely prescribed for outpatient use. She knew from the few times she'd heard her mom on the phone, explaining how she'd 'never have taken something like that from the pharmacy' while clutching similar packaging in her shaking hands.

It got worse when she turned the package over and her eyes fell on the Gotham Mercy General Hospital stamp on the back. Footsteps approached, Steph had to stifle her gasp and rolled quickly behind the truck, the low rumbling of the engine disguising her scrape of her shimmying underneath. She could only see the lower halves of the people who picked up the box and carried it off.

Her ears turned away from the grunts' bitching once they'd passed off, and she crawled a little closer to the two she'd been trying to reach in the first place, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the bag of painkillers. There was no way she could let them get away with the truck even if it cost her Robin. When the disappearance was noticed, and it would be impossible for anyone to hide _'this'_ much, it wasn't likely to be the actual culprits who got the axe. It'd be the ones with histories, the ones like her mom.

The couple tracers she brought with her, she buried as deep within the gaps in the undercarriage of the truck as she could push them without burning her fingers through her gloves.

"You sure that freak won't show?" The man standing near the truck asked just the barest tremble to give away that he wasn't calm as could be.

There was a clink that could have been a lighter and a pause before the woman spoke. "Even if he was going to, the Batman's keeping him occupied in Newtown." The acrid scent of cigarette smoke reached Steph's nose and it scrunched up against the smell. "And Batgirl's in the fashion district tonight."

Good thing she wasn't going to be sticking around much longer, a lecture about smoking was amongst the last things Steph needed. Now the tracers were in place all she had to do was get out of the way and call Batman, cops would never get here in time, but he could trace down the truck and there'd be proof some nurse hadn't made off with the missing drugs. Perfect plan.

Perfect if it didn't end with Steph waist deep in trouble that was, she was just preparing to crawl out from under the truck – and preparing her counter arguments to Batman while he was at it – when the subject of her targets' conversation shifted.

To her.

"What about that new Robin?" The guy asked, one of his feet disappearing, from Steph's view as he leaned against the truck.

The woman scoffed and stepped away from the truck. "That little girl? You mean you haven't heard?" There was a pause and more smoke reflected in the shining rims near Steph's head. "If you're worried about something like that, you're in the wrong line of work. Chances are she won't be around much longer."

A low growl escaped Steph's throat, and was camouflaged by the engine, her chest and face burning up almost as warm as the parts suspended above her head. Steph shoved the drug package in her pocket and shimmied her way out from under the truck. Assholes, she was gonna be around a long, long time, and when she was off probation she was gonna tell them that to her faces.

Steph crouched down, her back to the side of the truck and scouted her surroundings again. Each of the three grunts was now carrying the last of the boxes towards the truck. To her left, if she looked up, she could see another waiting in the driver's seat and a little up to her right was a pile of old packaging materials, wood and synthetic plastic ropes, some broken pieces of glass and cable ties.

Biting on the glove covering her thumb, Steph considered the materials she had to work with.

Getting rid of the guy in the driver's seat came first. Steph waited until he was looking the right way, then quickly stood crushed a pellet of sleeping gas between her thumb and forefinger right in front of his face. Reaching in through the window and unlocking, then pulling open the door was the work of lea than a second, just a few more to tie the guy up and dump him far enough from the wheels of the truck so there was no chance of him being crushed.

Driving the truck out herself wasn't even a possibility, they'd have caught and shot her before she got very far, but there she found a good use for the pile of junk.

When she was done, Steph crept out of the truck, the only thing to betray that her feet had touched down on the ground at all the little puffs of dust they kicked up. The rope she'd fashioned but tying ends of shorter ones together and attached to her jury-rigged creation only reached around halfway to the door. Only once she'd reached the absolute end of her literal rope, Steph tugged it sharply and sped for the door.

The truck revved up, the loud sound magnified further by the echoing quality of the building. It was loud enough to cover her dash out of there. The grunts dropped their remaining boxes and the other two had just the time to dive out of the way before the truck took off, raining splinters and chunks of half-rotten wood.

It took them long enough to stop staring at the truck sized hole in the wall and the resulting splash when both the vehicle and its sealed cargo crashed into Finger river, that Steph was already on her bike and tearing outta there by the time she was noticed.

Unfortunately, their reaction time was a little faster after that point, she'd barely made it a block away and she had cars after her. Cars way faster and in much better condition than either their truck or her old bike, which was making that clicking sound that makes her think she really should have caved and let Batman get her a new one.

Bullets came at her from behind, only two guns, it would have been nice of that meant the others didn't have any and not that they were just too busy driving. She swerved down the first narrow alley she came by, snatching up a bag of garbage as she did so.

The first car caught up with her a barely two blocks later and Steph released the bag, let it go splat against their windshield. She laughed breathlessly and tugged her hood lower over her face as she turned sharply round a corner, watching the car make nice with a tree.

The other was still gaining on her though. Steph took every sharp corner she could find, without the majority of her gear, the agility and smaller size of her bike were the only advantages she had. She ducked into another alley, now moving towards the bridges that would take her across the river. Some of those were pretty narrow too, and if they were free of foot traffic, as they generally were this time of night, Steph could but through them and loose her tail easy.

As soon as she was out of the alley, she turned for the crummy park that ran alongside the river. No one in this part of town was stupid enough to try going for a midnight stroll through the place, but it was perfect for Steph. Few though they were, there were enough trees to make it much harder – impossible in some places – for the cars to pass through the way she could on her bike. Consequently, the bastards had a much slower time of it that she did. The bullet volume increased, and she had to risk holding her head down a lot lower than she would have liked, but she heard less of the car almost as soon as she was through the second row of trees.

The footbridges, most of them thankfully empty, were right across and there was no way she wasn't going to make it to one. When she turned her head, she even got a nice view of the damage she had caused further down the river.

The truck was half sunk beneath the water, and they wouldn't be getting either it, or its cargo out before the cops showed up, even if it took Gotham's mostly useless police force hours to reach the scene. The guys following her must have realized the same thing, 'cause they were turning back, the others she'd gotten rid of earlier were visible hooking the truck up to their garbage covered car.

Her tires touched onto the concrete of the bridge, and if she'd had the breath in her lungs, Steph might have even let out a victory whoop. Relief flooded her veins, taking over for the adrenaline; it left her body feeling both incredibly heavy and totally weightless at the same time.

Then there was a BANG, it made Steph jump a little only because of how unexpected it was, she didn't have the time to bother with that though, because it was followed almost immediately by a much more worrying pop.

There was a deafening screeching of tires and Steph's bike swerved wildly off the path she'd set for it, leaving her stomach behind. She had a hard time just keeping her hands on the handlebars, and her heart seemed to have found a new home in her throat as she tried to get it across the bridge. At the speeds she'd been going, she couldn't slow it down enough to get back any semblance of control. The streetlights veered wildly off course against her field of vision and something slammed into her chest hard enough to make her still bruised ribs very angry with her. Then she got a mouthful of the Finger River's putrid salty/chemical flavored water and she couldn't see much of anything.

O

O

O

Thank god, she'd worn the thermals under her clothes; she did _'not'_ want to be dealing with hypothermia any time in the near future, or ever.

It took Steph an hour to drag her sopping wet self and her now useless bike out of the river and a couple blocks away from the crime scene. She'd heard the sirens of the cops actually doing their jobs so at least she didn't have to worry about that.

As she walked, leading her bike by the handlebars, she listened carefully for any signs that someone had thought to follow her, but after a while, felt fairly certain she didn't have much to worry about on that front. She let herself relax a little, and soon after that, let herself feel a little proud too.

Robin or not, she'd stopped them from getting away. The airtight packaging of the medications would keep the river from spoiling them, and even they weren't able to recover everything right away, they'd get most of it, enough to show the hospital what had happened to their supplies. When she got access to the computer again she could start work on tracking the crapsacks who'd stolen the stuff down too. For the time she had that feeling, that she'd accomplished something, she wanted to savor it fully, despite the exhaustion that swamped her tired muscles from both the training exercises and the evening's other exertions. She barely even felt the cold.

In her pocket her phone vibrated and Steph scooped it out, surprised it was still working after its dip in the river W.I stuff was the best. She shook off some loose droplets of water as she flipped the phone open and pressed it against her ear.

"Yello." She chirped and rammed her bike over a little snowdrift.

' _Robin, I want you suited up and ready in half an hour, I'm on my way to pick you up for an altercation in the Coventry.'_ Batman's voice. Batman's voice, going to pick her up at the cave, the cave where she wasn't because she was already in the Coventry and had a pretty good idea of what the _'altercation'_ was.

"Err." Steph stopped walking, her eyes staring blankly ahead, whatever adrenaline her body had left dripping into her system and leaving her jittery.

' _Robin?'_

"I'm uh, not at the cave anymore." Steph cleared her throat and rested her bike against the nearest wall, as her brain scrambled to find its way out of this. "I finished the exercises and went home to finish some schoolwork, since, y'know I was, I thought I was still benched."

Batman didn't say anything, and Steph didn't hear so much as his breathing from the other end of the line, she almost put her phone away, thinking he'd hung up when he finally spoke again. _'Did you complete 'all' of the exercises I assigned you?'_

"Yup." Steph scuffed her boot against the snow, not sure whether to feel proud that she'd done it or incensed that he thought she hadn't. "You can check the monitors 'f you don't believe me."

Batman grunted, his usual unintelligible grunt and not one of the ones she'd learned to read. _'If you're still awake I'll be there in two hours, Agent A wanted me to drop something off for you.'_

"Yeah sure, I guess I'll see you then, bye." Steph clamped the phone shut, and put it away, then considered turning it off for good measure just in case Batman tried to track her by it.

She got a full few seconds of continuing her walk before she stopped and realized she'd never be able to make it all the way home in two hours on foot, with her bike. Even if she left her bike, she couldn't do it without a grapple gun.

"Oh no." She dropped her head against the softish seat of her bike. She didn't even have cash to call a cab, and none would take her all the way to the suburbs if she didn't pay upfront. "Oh, no." she muttered again and her knees hit the snow, a heavy, sickening feeling pushing against her stomach.

Now she could feel the cold, and it was indeed very, very cold.

O

O

O

Jason dropped onto his bed face first, sore all over and smelling strongly of the acidic chemicals he'd rigged to blow at ACE. Bruce, for all he was an ass could hit hard, very hard. Jason was impressed the old man still had it in him. The chemicals had gone up so well it was a wonder that place hadn't burned itself down by now.

With a groan, he stretched out, letting his tired muscles unwind and relax against the heavenly soft feel of his bed. T had been fun though, really fun. Some things he'd left on the bed fell off the sides and clattered to the floor. It was fine, he's pick them up when he was done sleeping.

He buried his face under his pillow in preparation for that beam of light that always managed to make its way though his blinds at eight AM no matter what he did, and settled in for the night. His mind lazily scrolled through his plans for the upcoming weeks, lulling him to sleep.

It had been a while since he's seen that Robin out, he wondered when he'd see her again, if he needed to factor her into those plans. When would she be back on the streets…? Would she be back on the streets? She'd been pretty bruised up when he'd met her out of costume, but he was sure he hadn't broken anything, so she should have…

Suddenly his body didn't seem so keen on relaxing. He pressed his face into his pillow half hoping it would suffocate him into sleep. It didn't work, and on top of that, there was now an irritating as fuck buzzing that wouldn't go away no matter how hard he held the pillow over his ears.

It seemed to get louder and louder and he leaped up, swinging his legs off his bed, ready to break the first fucking thing he got his hands on. The buzzing was coming from the ground, not his bed, from the stuff he'd knocked off his bed. One of his burner phones, whatever moron had been stupid enough to call him now was getting their fucking head shot off.

"What the hell do you want?" He growled into the receiver.

' _Uhm… Peter_?' Her voice was high, confusion seeping through so strongly he could picture her frown clear as if she were standing before him.

Shit. Jason pulled the phone from his ear, blinked down at the number and the time, 4:30, before bringing the device back to his ear.

' _Nevermind, I think I called the wrong number.'_

"Uh, no, no. It's me." Stupid, his could have rapped his fist against his head if there was a chance it would make his mind catch up to the world around him. "Sorry, it's just uh, really early, what is it, S…" Shit had she told him her name? He couldn't remember, "…Suburb girl?" The hell kind of save was that?

She snorted on the other end of the line, a light, airy sound, and he relaxed infinitesimally. _'Do you still wanna look at my bike? 'Cause I really need a mechanic. I can uh, I can pay you.'_

Well shit. That was something that happened.


End file.
